Oh No - It's Apostrophes!

Today, we are going to look at one of the most misunderstood and misused punctuation marks in English – oh yes the apostrophe! I bet there are already some of you filled with terror, but don’t worry we are in this together! When I was in university in my home town of Cardiff, Wales, one of my lecturers remarked on the lack of apostrophes used in the essays handed into him, and the fact that he would start deducting marks if work was not punctuated correctly. A good friend of mine, Becky, decided it was time to start using apostrophes, but was unsure of how to use them. Rather than looking up the information she needed, she decided to randomly add apostrophes throughout her work around words ending with “s”. Needless to say, this approach did not work well and at a following lecture we were advised NOT to use apostrophes if we had no idea when they should be used!  

WARNING – All the images on this post are examples of the INCORRECT use of apostrophes!              

 

Don’t be like Becky; let’s see if we can master these tricky little punctuation marks. Firstly, we use the apostrophe to show when a letter (or letters) have been omitted, usually when two words are spoken as one. Look at the first sentence in this paragraph and notice that I have used the apostrophe twice.

 Don’t = do not, the apostrophe shows where the missing letter should be.

 Let’s = Let us, again the apostrophe shows us there is a letter missing from the place it marks.

There are many more examples of this use including:-

Can’t = can not

Could’ve = could have

Couldn’t = could not

They’re = they are

You’d = you would

Wasn’t = was not

I’m = I am

It’s = it is or it has depending on the sentence.

I’ll = I will

We may also say something like “Oh no my car’s run out of petrol” = my car has run out of petrol.  “Joanna’s coming out tonight” = Joanna is coming out tonight.

So rule number one is that the apostrophe is used to show when words are deliberately shortened, and the apostrophe shows where the missing letter/s should be.

If we are happy with this, let’s move on to their other use. Apostrophes are also used to show possession, that a thing belongs to or relates to something else. Sounds a bit complicated but let’s have a look at some examples to clarify. Rather than saying the party of Jane, we would usually say Jane’s party, we could say the cat’s tail rather than the tail of the cat or talk about yesterday’s rain, instead of the rain of yesterday. As you will probably have noticed all these examples have single nouns – they talk of one person, one cat and one specific day’s weather. So the general rule is with a single noun or personal name you put an apostrophe then an “s” to show possession.

Things tend to get a little more complicated when looking at personal names that end in “s”. If, when spoken you would say the extra “s” then the general rule still applies, you add an apostrophe then “s”. Here are some examples to show what I mean. Thomas’s brother is a little shorter than him.  Dickens’s novels are wonderful. Charles’s hair needs a cut.

However, if when you say the sentence, you would not pronounce the extra “s” then don’t put it in. Simply put the apostrophe after the original s. I know it sounds confusing but hopefully the following example will help. “I was lucky enough to see Jimmy Connors’ best game.”

This also applies when we look at plural nouns that end in “s”. Do not add another “s” just put the apostrophe after the original one. In this way we might talk of “a girls’ school” or that we work in a dogs’ home.

On the other hand, if the plural noun does not end in an “s” then we are back to adding an apostrophe then “s”. To give you an example we would talk of “The children’s father.”

One important rule to remember is that no apostrophe is needed when using the possessive pronouns yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs and whose. It is suggested that they already assume possession. However all other possessive pronouns do take an apostrophe including one’s, everyone’s, nobody else’s etc.

I hope I have helped to clarify and not just confused you more! Honestly, when you get a handle on using these punctuation marks they really do make a difference. The English author Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), was challenged to come up with a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe. Here is the sentence he supplied:

Those things over there are my husband’s. (Those things over there belong to my husband.)

Those things over there are my husbands’. (Those things over there belong to several husbands of mine.)

Those things over there are my husbands. (I’m married to those men over there.)

Another wrong example! 

You see apostrophes are important!    

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